Diana Schwartz

Undergraduate Fellow, Team Flora

“I say ‘I’ve met that plant.’ I always have had a weirdly specific memory, which helps me learn plants. I am not studying them, they are just guys that I've met before.” 

Diana Schwartz is an endlessly curious naturalist. A volunteer at Shaw Nature Reserve during the year, she is passionate about stewarding and learning about the land around her. 

“I just want to know everything that there is to know, honestly. Every time I see a plant I think, ‘What's that?... and what is that?’ Working on this team is a good opportunity to learn what 'that' is and learn the actual steps of using a dichotomous key and learning all the specific botany terms. I do not have much of a botanical background or anything like that. I just know plants from familiarity and being able to recognize them and stuff. 

I knew opposite or alternate, woody or herbaceous – but now I know, glabrous or glaucous, or all the other words that start with ‘gl’ to describe hairiness. All the words for the different leaf attachments. Learning all the parts of a flower. That was something that I found really valuable.” 

Diana’s new botanical skill set has opened doors for her future plant observations. 

“I have always had a very high attention to detail. I feel like that is why I'm drawn to this. It has definitely changed the way that I look at grasses because before I thought, ‘Ah, it’s a grass.’ But now I think, ‘Let me look a little closer.’”